{"id":924939,"date":"2026-07-10T06:41:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T06:41:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/924939\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T06:41:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T06:41:19","slug":"these-asian-owned-la-restaurants-paid-influencers-to-promote-them-they-failed-to-deliver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/924939\/","title":{"rendered":"These Asian-owned LA restaurants paid influencers to promote them. They failed to deliver"},"content":{"rendered":"

It started with US$500 and a comped meal at Hollywood Thai.<\/p>\n

That is what the family-run restaurant in Los Angeles\u2019 Thai Town paid an influencer in exchange for a single social media post. When that post did not immediately materialise, the owners aired their frustrations on Instagram. The internet responded, roiling with online comments that publicly called out the influencer, who has more than 1.5 million followers on Instagram.<\/p>\n

There are few rules of engagement when it comes to family-run restaurants hiring social media personalities to post about them. A recent spate of clashes involving influencers<\/a> and small businesses highlights the messiness and pitfalls of trying to survive in a fraught restaurant industry with little revenue to spare while navigating the hyper-saturated attention economy.<\/p>\n

Some restaurateurs say social media influencers help spread the word and provide valuable marketing; others say it is hard to tell whether their posts result in new customers at all.<\/p>\n

In recent months, some paying restaurants in Los Angeles say they have been professionally \u201cghosted\u201d, and the fallout has resulted in deleted accounts, threats from a purported lawyer, allegations of bought followers, and countless harassing comments left on creators\u2019 accounts.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe owner of Hollywood Thai in Los Angeles\u2019 Thai Town was left disappointed after an influencer allegedly didn\u2019t deliver agreed-upon content after receiving payment and free food. Photo: Los Angeles Times\/TNS\"Saut\u00e9edSaut\u00e9ed clams with Thai basil and chilli sauce (left) served with pad Thai Sukhothai and Thai iced milk tea at Hollywood Thai. Photo: Los Angeles Times\/TNSFor a few years, Mahidol \u201cJoe\u201d Pimpa\u2019s Hollywood Thai restaurant felt busy, with Thai tourists and other restaurant owners stopping by for satay, curries and specialities such as pad Thai Sukhothai. But since the Covid-19 pandemic<\/a>, business has slowed to a trickle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It started with US$500 and a comped meal at Hollywood Thai. That is what the family-run restaurant in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":924940,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[373180,1582,276,373177,36421,373181,373185,373176,37971,563,2961,250719,373182,224,373175,5337,373184,373178,373179,373183,345,21421,36148,2397,373186],"class_list":["post-924939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-bap-ross","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-christian-garcia","tag-echo-park","tag-ed-choi","tag-food-journal-magazine","tag-hollywood-thai","tag-influencers","tag-instagram","tag-la","tag-la-restaurants","tag-leah-marie-talabi","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-thai-town","tag-losangeles","tag-men-beasts","tag-relentless-brewing-and-spirits","tag-richard-lee","tag-sarah-talabi","tag-social-media","tag-social-media-influencers","tag-the-united-states","tag-tiktok","tag-what-to-eat-in-la"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116894321037720344","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=924939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/924940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=924939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=924939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=924939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}